Lenny sits behind the wheel of his 1989 Corsica. The Car is as broken down as he is. Just 26 years old but the drugs have left his body thin, pale and run down. The tattoos he got 6 years earlier, and decorate both arms and up to his neck, look much less threatening now then when he got them to piss off his parents.
He and his two junkie friends, Heidi and Cole, are out of money, out of crack, and desperate. It is mid-day and they are driving up and down neighborhoods looking for a house.
“Do we have to do this? I hate this. It is scary.” Heidi moans. She finishes the last of her 7-11 nachos and throws the empty box to the floor with the other garbage in the car. She looks like she may have been attractive at some point in her life, but now she is just skinny and looks like a shower is something she has not seen in some time.
“We can do this, or you can go off and sell blow jobs on the ave.” Lenny responds. “Fuck that. I’m not doing that again.” Heidi protests.
“Cole, wake the fuck up! We all need to keep our eyes out.” Lenny barks.
Another skinny wrecked body slowly creeps up from the back seat. Cole has long unkempt hair and surprisingly no tattoos. “Fuck.” He scratches his arms. “Fuck. Give me that last hit, man.”
“Not until we score. Get your fucking eyes open.” Lenny barks. Cole just moans in protest.
Lenny turns the corner on a quiet street. “This looks promising.”
They cruise up and down the block. It’s quiet.
“This street reminds me of my parent’s neighborhood”. Heidi observes. They keep driving and see nobody in the yards and the houses feel empty. One or two driveways have cars. They get to the corner and see one particular house that feels isolated. Lenny slows down. “What do you guys think?”
“Whatever, yeah, looks fine?” Cole says impatiently.
“Heidi?” Lenny inquires. “Sure, whatever.” She responds.
“O.K. Same drill. Lenny, put on your jacket. Grab the bible to pretend you are a missionary. We’ll circle the block. If it is a go I’ll drop Hiedi off with the garbage bags, you guys have 5 minutes to fill. Heidi, you text me when you are ready and I’ll pull up.”
Before Lenny is done talking, Cole has grabbed the bible and headed for the door. He walks slowly, but confidently to the door. The car drives away.
He knocks and rings the door bell. No answer and no dog. He repeats. Again no answer. He looks around the neighborhood. Sees nobody in the windows or in the yard. He slowly walks to the side of the house and into the back yard where he finds a back door. He checks the door to see if it is locked, which it is. “Fuck. O.K. The hard way.” He takes off the jacket, wraps it in his fist and breaks the door window. He quickly reaches in and unlocks the door.
He pulls his phone out of his phone and texts, “Come now.”
He walks through to the front door and waits for Lenny to pull to a stop. Heidi jumps out and runs to the door with garbage bags. The car leaves again. Cole opens the front door to let her in and quickly closes it.
The front room is clean, not messy at all. Lots of family photos on the wall. The dining area has some plates still in the sink and cereal boxes out.
“Move it. Fast!” Cole barks. He pulls apple TV and blue ray player from the TV and throws it into bag.
“I know!” Heidi barks back. She disappears into the bedrooms. “Fuck, where is the jewelry?!” she yells in the distance.
Cole kicks the TV to the ground after he has purged it of the items he can take. “Fuck it. Can’t take it anyway.” He looks to his left to see the family picture. “What the fuck are you looking at!” He takes the picture off the wall and smashes it to the ground before he moves to the hall closet.
“Fuck! Just jackets. God damn it!” He says as he throws them to the ground. He rips the sliding door from the wall and yells down the hallway. “Did you find any jewelry?!”
“Shit yeah, tons. Computer too!” She yells back.
“2 minutes!” Cole shouts and finds the route downstairs. He runs into a room to the left. It’s a game room decorated with posters. There is a TV with multiple game councils and a pool table centered in the room. Cole goes right to business and starts ripping counsels out of the TV and throwing them in the bag. He sprints out of the room and heads down the hall where he finds a general room filled with power tools and general home stuff.
“Finally, some decent shit!” He starts putting tool after tool into his bag when he hears a door open down the hall. He stops to listen. “Is that you?” he says without yelling. His alarm goes off on his phone. He turns it off and walks more deliberately to the door. As soon as he steps out he is struck with a bat. It doesn’t connect with all of his head but makes him stumble back.
“You scum bag!” A slightly overweight man dressed in gym clothes and a T shirt continues to come after him and takes a huge downward swing. “Fuck!” Cole reacts. He manages to shield the blow and deflect the bat. He goes immediately into survival mode and drives into the man. He picks him up and runs with him to the end of the hallway where he throws him toward the pool table. The man’s head strikes the side of the pool table and he goes to the ground motionless.
Cole barely notices and just continues up the stairs in a panic. “We have to get the fuck out of here!” When he gets to the top Heidi is nowhere to be found. “Where the fuck are you?!”
Cole hears the voice down the hallway. “I’m still getting a few things.” Cole sprints down the room where she is still buried in the closet. He physically grabs her. “Get the fuck moving! There is a guy down stairs!”
Instinctively she grabs her two bags and beats him out the door. Cole trails her out of the house where Lenny is sitting in the Corsica. He pops the trunk. They throw the bags in, slam it shut, jump into the car, and speed away.
“What the hell were you guys waiting for?” Lenny shouts.
“Some guy was down stairs.” Cole shouts.
“What!? Didn’t you knock?” Lenny shouts as he drives. “I knocked, rang the door bell 4 or 5 times. Broke the back window. Fucker must be deaf!” Cole responds.
“Why didn’t he just call the cops? You were in the for at least 5 minutes.” Lenny asks.
They hear sirens coming at them.
“Oh shit.” Heidi starts to stress.
“Just be cool.” Lenny tries to remind them and himself. “Do you think the guy saw the car?”
“I don’t think so. He came at me from downstairs in the basement. He was probably sleeping.”
“Came at you?” Hiedi asks.
“Yeah, fucker hit me with a bat.” Heidi turns back to see a side of his face is swollen and red. “Oh shit.” Heidi says.
“A bat? How did you get out of there?” Lenny asks as he notices the cop cars with sirens coming straight forward. “Shit just be cool. Let them pass.”
“He took a second swing at me and I deflected it. I just wanted to get the hell out of there but he was in the way. I managed to lift him off the ground drove him back into their fucked up game room. Threw him in there and jammed.”
“Was he hurt?” Heidi asks. “I have no fucking idea. I sprinted upstairs before he landed.”
The three are starting to calm down now the police cars has passed them.
“Fuck him. What does the score look like?” Lenny asks Heidi. “Shitload of jewelry. Looks like really old pieces. Hand me downs, but pretty shiny shit.”
Cole is sitting in the back seat. He picks up a bag of chips in off the floor and starts to eat. “Damn that shit makes me hungry”.
“What about you Cole?” Lenny asks.
“Standard stuff, Blue Rays, sound bar, video games, but ended up finding some pretty dope tools down stairs. Was filling my stocking like Santa until Ken Griffey Junior starts swinging for the fences.”
Later that night they sit around the room. Cole is sprawled out on a couch. Glassy eyed and watching cartoons. Giggling occasionally. Heidi is passed out on the floor with a crack spoon in her hand. Lenny chops his crack in in his spoon and the holds it over the candle until the heat creates the comforting crackle. He leans over with his straw and sucks it in. The quick hit makes him role his eyes back and lounge in the chair.
The rest of the apartment is a complete mess. Old chairs that appear to have been stolen from a dump, pizza boxes, pop cans and general garbage all over the floor.
“Oh, fuck. Well, after getting the fix and pizza, we still are 300 short on rent.” Lenny declares in his post hit, eyes closed, declaration.
“Shit.” Cole giggles through the cartoon. “Back to work tomorrow.”
“Yep”. Lenny responds.
Cole roles on his back and smiles. “This is turning into a regular job.”
The next day they are back in the car. A bit more attentive then the previous day. The fix has made them a bit more focused.
“Shit, I can’t believe we are already out here again.” Heidi moans.
“Need rent money.” Lenny responds with unemotional directness.
They continue to drive past houses and neighborhoods. For some reason each block has reasons to take a pass. A person out working in their yard gives them a suspicious look.
They pull into one neighborhood. It seems quiet. They cruise back through second time.
“Seems pretty dead around here” Cole observes. “Let’s do one more pass.” They go around the block and reduce speed to a slow crawl trying to entice any hidden onlookers to come out. It is looking good until a garage door opens and child comes out on his bike.
Cole leans back in his seat. “Looks like we are still on the hunt.”
“There is a place I remember that is really isolated.” Lenny says. “What are we waiting for?” Heidi responds.
“It’s about 30 minutes from here.” Lenny says. “Fuck it. Hunting is no good around these neighborhoods. Can we hit 7-11 before we head?” Cole responds.
“God yeah. A big bite sounds perfect.” Heidi says. “Shit if you were hungry for a big bite, lets just take you to the Ave to get paid for it.” Cole eggs her on. “Fuck you” Heidi passively responds as if it is the 100th time she had heard that.
Later Lenny turns off the freeway. The three each have big gulps firmly in hand. “How far?” Heidi asks.
“Not too far.” Lenny replies. The road continues with only long driveways and the homes that are not too visible, but the road traffic is too heavy to test. They take a turn and the road turns into trees and fields only. Out of nowhere, in the middle of these trees is a cul-de-sac. 4 new developed homes like a standard suburban neighborhood.
Cole sits up when he notices. The car stops before turning in. “What the hell?” What is this development? Don’t they usually put of like 300 homes in areas like this?”
“I know. Strange, right?” Lenny agrees. “I came across this a couple of months ago driving out to find mushrooms. Same thing. Looks lived in but nobody is there.”
“Boat in two of the driveways?” Heidi observes. “But quiet and empty.” Lenny responds.
“Pull in. Test it out. This could be ideal.” Lenny slowly pulls into the cul-de-sac. They study each home. One after the other has immaculately maintained yards and what appears to be two story homes.
Guessing from the outside, it looks like between 3-4 bedrooms. The curtains are drawn on all the homes so you can’t see if anybody is home or not.
“Jesus. How do we know? All of them have the curtains drawn?” Cole queries. “Yeah. Who knows what is going on here. It’s like it is abandoned. Maybe all homes with no kids?” Heidi ponders.
Lenny thinks for a second. “Ok. We have 4 homes, right? So, let’s each take one door to knock on to check. We say, we are, um looking for Thompson Park if they answer. If nobody answers, Cole head to the 4th and we start.”
Heidi and Cole nod their heads. They get out of the car. Each of them picks out a house. The quiet of the neighborhood is a bit unsettling. “Fucking quiet around here.” Heidi whispers but both of them hear and acknowledge.
“O.K. let’s do this.” Lenny says as they each walk up to a doorway. Not much is different in any of them. Each knocks and rings the doorbell. Lenny looks at the one house on the corner they didn’t chose to test. Absolutely nothing happens. The look at each other, exchange shrugs and meet in the middle of the street.
“Nothing. Not even a dog bark.” Cole says. “Yeah, no alarm system aps, or ring door bell stuff.” Lenny adds.
“Cool. But strange.” Heidi observes. “So, what is the plan?”
“Same ol. Cole will knock on the door of this one.” He points to home they are going to hit on the corner. A car is parked in front of one of the duel car garage doors.
Cole walks up while Heidi and Lenny wait in front of the car. He knocks and knocks. Nothing. He tries to peer inside the window but the curtains are completely drawn with no gaps to peak through. He returns to the door and knocks again. He turns to the other two and shrugs. They feel all alone with these homes. Lenny motions to him to try one more time. Cole knocks and nothing.
Lenny gets in the front seat of the car and starts it. Heidi grabs garbage bags from the back. Cole tests the front door and to his surprise it opens. He turns and looks at Heidi and Lenny. They all exchange smiles like they can’t believe how easy this is. Cole slowly walks inside. Heidi has caught up with him. He looks around as Heidi catches up with him. “Hello?” Cole says in less then a shout. Heidi is right in back of him.
The living room is filled with art work, vases, and has a piano in the corner. Three display cabinets that have various exotic collectibles. Some that seem gold and some are decorated with diamonds. Even a tiara. There is the standard home entertainment system but nothing too exotic in the entertainment system. Surprisingly, no family pictures of any kind.
“Wow!” Heidi observes. “Wow is right. We have to have to Lenny in here. I am going to open the garage door.” Cole says as he races through the dining room and finds the garage with no cars inside. He hits the button that opens the door and makes eye contact with Lenny who is in the car and waves for him to pull up and in.
Lenny pulls the car into the garage. Cole closes the door behind him and motions for him to turn the car off. He closes the garage door.
“What the hell?” Lenny says as he gets out the car. The sides of the garage are stacked with well organized boxes and nothing else. “This place is a gold mine. Inside is nothing but the jewels and display cabinets. We need to fill the trunk up! There is no one here. You work on these boxes and we’ll keep working the inside of the house. “ Cole instructs.
Cole runs back into the house and into the living room. Heidi is standing with the garbage bags looking at the stuff in the display case.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” Cole asks. “Dump and go.”
“This stuff looks really amazing, but really fragile. Will it be worth anything if we damage it?” Heidi asks.
“Just be careful. But start putting it in. I’ll start hitting the rooms.” He runs from her and disappears upstairs. Heidi starts working on the display case.
She goes to her knees and collects the items at the bottom of the display case. She is moving so fast she doesn’t notice the feet that are in back of her. She stands up without thinking and stands face to face with a woman with pale white skin, long black hair and eyes that are half blood red and half white with pure black pupils.
Before Heidi can scream the woman puts her hand over her mouth muffles her. Her grip is locked over her mouth so no sounds come out. Heidi can’t move her head. The woman moves Heidi’s body to face away from the display cabinet. Heidi barely notices but the woman has her lifted almost a full foot off the ground. She holds Heidi with the effortlessness most people hold an umbrella. Heidi is hitting and kicking her with no effect. She realizes she is in control of nothing.
The woman smiles to display her fangs. Tears emerge from Heidi as she continues to struggle like a live fish being held by a fisherman. Out of the hallway another person emerges. He is over six feet tall well maintained hair but he same pasty facial features. Dressed all in black. He makes eye contact with the woman holding Heidi. She motions him to the garage. Another person emerges from the open hallway. This one just as tall as the first one but blond hair. Everything but their face looks like the body of a person in their mid 20s.
She carries Heidi, who is still flailing, toward the other two.
“Guys, let’s move! I want to get out of here. This place gives me the creeps!” Lenny shouts from the garage.
The one with black hair strokes Heidi’s hair as she dangles helplessly. All she can due is plead with her eyes.
He grabs her flailing arm. He smells it up and down. He takes his index finger with long sharp fingernails and slowly punctures a small incision into Heidi’s arm. This starts Hiedi flailing again. He tastes the blood from his fingernail glances to the other two and whispers, “Not for a week at least.”
“Come on!” Lenny shouts again from the garage. “Hold on, it is a gold mine up here!” Cole shouts back.
“Take her down. We’ll see you soon.” The one with black hair instructs the woman.
He motions for the other one to go upstairs as he heads to the garage. The closer he walks the more he can hear Lenny outside tearing through boxes. He turns to see him ripping through them and dumping what he doesn’t want all over the garage.
Lenny doesn’t notice a person is there and just assumes it is Cole as he hurriedly runs to the trunk to continue to put stuff inside.
“Jesus come on! I want to get out of here!” He finally looks up to notice it isn’t Cole who is walking toward him. “Fuck!” He says but doesn’t shout. He sizes up the persons frame and soon decides he can’t take him on. “Wow, dude, sorry man.” He still doesn’t notice his face and starts backpedaling. He realizes his only way out is going to be through the front door of the house. He looks around for a weapon but can’t find one.
“Oh, by all means, take your time. I love how you have broke all Criedlers collection.” The man calmly says. Lenny finally notices his face. “What the fuck!” The man smiles to show his fangs. Lenny feels his feet trying to go fast but before he knows it, the man has grabbed him with one hand on the shoulder. His fingernails grind into Leon like a Lion biting into its prey. Leon is in so much pain he can’t even swing. Screaming is his only release. The man throws him 20 feet to the other side of the garage crashing into the wall and landing on the floor. Bloody shoulder, and at least some broken ribs from the collision, Lenny lays moaning on the floor of the garage.
Upstairs, Cole is working his way through the last bedroom. He gets to the bottom drawer he is working on. It’s heavy. He finally pulls it open to find gold bars. “Holy shit!’ Cole says. He stands up and finds a pillow and removes the pillowcase to start filling it up. He notices himself in the mirror and the euphoria on his face. “Fuck yes!” He goes back down to put all the gold bars in the pillowcase. When he stands up his joy turns immediately to fear as he sees the blond vampire staring at him from the mirror. He turns to face him.
“What the fuck!” Fear has struck him, but, like Lenny, he fails to notice the facial features and what he is really confronted with. He goes into survival mode. He turns the pillow sheet filled with gold into a weapon. He twists it as tight as the can and runs at the man who remains motionless.
He swings it up and starts it down. Swiftly and calmly the blond vampire stops his arm in mid motion and the pillow flies out of his hands smashing to the ground. All the gold bars litter the floor. While the vampire continues to effortlessly hold his arm, Cole tries to kick and hit him with his other hand but it is having zero effect. It’s like hitting and kicking a large boxing heavy bag, but it isn’t moving. In fact the vampire begins to seem amused.
It doesn’t stop Cole from trying. Then a smile comes across the vampire’s face and he snaps Cole’s arm like a small branch. The pain is immediate and overtakes all of Cole’s being as he releases a blood curdling scream. Sweat immediately starts to flow down his face from the pain and he gets lightheaded as shock begins to set in as he is on all fours holding his arm.
The vampire grabs him by the back of his right leg and starts dragging him down the hall. Cole continues to scream from the unrelenting pain from the arm. He turns downstairs and continues do drag Cole like a piece of meat. Cole’s body is feeling every bounce and hit of the stairs.
When they get to the bottom at least the rapid beating of the stairs has stopped. His entire body is in pain but mostly still penetrating from his arm. The vampire continues down to the last room with Cole still in tow. At least the flat floor has provided some respite.
They turn into the bedroom. As he does Cole swings into the doorway with his fractured arm and he releases another scream. They come to an opening in the floor with lights coming up and stairs leading down. He continues to walk down those stairs which are a bit more vertical then the home stairs, and not carpeted. Cole feels every step of the hard wood stairs.
When they get to the bottom he lets go of Cole who has no energy. He lays barely conscious on the floor. Cole’s vision is blurry as he tries to scan the room. He does notice Heidi and Lenny have been stripped and are hanging by a chained device from the ceiling. It is hard to make much out in the room under his condition but it feels really sterile and cold. No windows, no carpet. A few tables, but the details are fuzzy in the condition he is in.
“Go ahead and get him strapped up, Sebastien.” The black haired vampire says.
The blond vampire drags Cole further into the room and flips him over. The female vampire comes over and starts ripping his pants off.
“Which one do you think we will get to start with first, Cassandra?” Sebastian asks.
“Oh, Phillip thinks it will be at least two weeks of detox before we will be able to drink from any of them? Blood is really impure.” Cassandra responds. They tear Cole’s shirt off and the pain makes him scream again.
Phillip, the black haired vampire, is checking Lenny’s blood as he hangs helpless like a piece of meat in a meat locker. Phillip grows annoyed at the Cole’s screaming. “Can you guys put the muzzle on him first?” Heide grabs a muzzle and wraps it around Cole’s sweaty head. He is now completely stripped. They role him over to his stomach and onto a group of set out chains. They lock the back of it and lift him up to hang next to his friends. All 3 are muzzled and hanging. Whatever fear they all had has been replaced by shear exhaustion.
Phillip walks over to Cole and sees his misshaped arm. “Did you have to break his arm?”
“He was tougher than I thought.” Sebastian says smugly. “Well, it will be harder to keep this one alive until he is ripe. He may die of shock?” Phillip complains.
“I don’t mind a bit of impurity in my blood.” Sebastian replies.
Cassandra approaches. “Why don’t we knock him out, set the arm so it doesn’t move, and pump him with fluids?” She asks Phillip.
“Yeah, I think it is the only way. It will take longer because we’ll have to flush out the sedative, but at least he will live long enough to get pure.”
Cassandra walks over to a cabinet to retrieve the sedative.
“Are we good with the car?” Sebastian asks. “Let one of the neighbors take care of it. These rats always hit our house, so one of them needs to take care of the car this time?” Cassandra says as she fills up a hypodermic with a sedative.
“Or we need to rotate out of this house.” Phillip responds.
“Why would we do that? This is the fun part. Almost as good as the feast.” Sebastian says. All three smile and nod to one another.
Cassandra walks toward the other two with the needle. All 3 look at Cole who is barely awake. A look of resolution falls over him. Phillip has a small hand cloth and wipes the sweat from his face.
“This was a brilliant way to hunt, Phillip. I have to be honest, I didn’t think it would work, but we’ve been able to just hang here and let the prey come to us.” Sebastian offers.
“Two years and counting. This trap has never failed and we haven’t been close to hungry.” Cassandra adds as she injects Cole.
Phillip responds. “Amazing what you pick up from Animal Planet. If something is starving they will need to find resources. It’s why penguins and seals jump into waters filled with Killer Whales to get to the fish. The key is to make it appear that there are no predators. Like the Venus Fly trap.”
Cole’s eyes start to close and his consciousness fades.
“With how things are going in this country, more desperate every day, we will be able to feed like this for a long time.”
Cole slips into final unconsciousness.